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Photos of Omaha Beach D Day war cemetery and Les Braves sculptures on Omaha Beach, Normandy, France. On Tuesday June 6th 1944 the Allied Invasion force landed along the Normandy coast at the start of Operation Overlord to liberate occupied Europe. The actual landings on the beaches of France were called the D-Day landings and the untested 29th Infantry Division, joined by the veteran 1st Infantry Division and nine companies of U.S. Army Rangers redirected from Pointe du Hoc, were to assault...more »

Photos of Omaha Beach D Day war cemetery and Les Braves sculptures on Omaha Beach, Normandy, France. On Tuesday June 6th 1944 the Allied Invasion force landed along the Normandy coast at the start of Operation Overlord to liberate occupied Europe. The actual landings on the beaches of France were called the D-Day landings and the untested 29th Infantry Division, joined by the veteran 1st Infantry Division and nine companies of U.S. Army Rangers redirected from Pointe du Hoc, were to assault the western half of the beach. The battle-hardened 1st Infantry Division was given the eastern half. The initial assault waves, consisting of tanks, infantry, and combat engineer forces, were carefully planned to reduce the coastal defenses and allow the larger ships of the follow-up waves to land.

Very little went as planned during the landing at Omaha. Difficulties in navigation caused the majority of landing craft to miss their targets throughout the day. The defenses were unexpectedly strong, and inflicted heavy casualties on landing US troops. Under heavy fire, the engineers struggled to clear the beach obstacles; later landings bunched up around the few channels that were cleared. Weakened by the casualties taken just in landing, the surviving assault troops could not clear the heavily defended exits off the beach. This caused further problems and consequent delays for later landings. Small penetrations were eventually achieved by groups of survivors making improvised assaults, scaling the bluffs between the most heavily defended points. By the end of the day, two small isolated footholds had been won, which were subsequently exploited against weaker defenses further inland, thus achieving the original D-Day objectives over the following days.

Today a nine-meter tall stainless steel sculpture by Anilore Ban honors all those men who landed here on Omaha Beach to liberate France. The sculpture has 3 elements: 1) Wings of Hope, 2) Rise, Freedom!, and 3) Wings of Fraternity. Above the beach are the war cemeteries for those who died on Omaha Beach on D-Day.

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